Sunday, July 31, 2011

Set in the future where a high tech clinic is run by terminal computers that control every operation going on, it seems that due to the fact that the staff has barely anything to do, they pass their time by breaking a few ethical rules including betting on which of their wards will bite the big one first. When one patient, suffering from a bladder infection, dies from severe hemorrhaging due to an unknown substance placed in her medication, some action were to be expected to get into the bottom of this.

If you think that's bad, wait til you watch this scene...

In comes Dr. Frank Holt, who never trusted a single computer and whose bitterness towards the idea have his peers batting him with a sarcastic eyes, perhaps enough to make sure he is to blame for the bizarre accidents that begins to plague the automated hospital. Putting Holt in pressure, he has no other choice but to go on an all-out investigation that unravels a series of betrayal, murder and unauthorized medical experiments.

Some might argue that this film is not a slasher film and I'm not going to disagree much because I can understand why; Terminal Choice has no human killer and the murders were done through sabotaged machines rather than hand-held weapons. And yet, it does contain some slasher overtones and a workable mystery that can keep seasoned fans glued; who is doing this and why are the big questions presented before us and it's cleverly executed to keep you engaged as the more conspiracy begins to unfold, more victims start dying from "accidents".

This movie reminds me how much I'm afraid of heart attacks...

The murders in this film, while not very "slasher-like", still passes my expectations by tapping into the fear of putting your life to the trust of total strangers, this time not of man, but of machines. The idea of your weakened state taken into the advantage of the killer may have been done already in similar flicks like Hospital Massacre or Visiting Hours but in here, it's more chilling as it is done by automated machines. When the kills happen, they don't keep it simple: patients will try to squirm to get away, blood soaks blouses, people cringe as it gets to them that they're dying, there's great tension built for each of these deaths, in turn, which eventually goes on a full blow by the time our dear doctor friend got himself injured and left at the mercy of the madman and their machines.

It's a shame that this movie is often overlooked because for a thriller, it delivers what most slashers fail to do and that is creating clever variations from the usual bodycounting while keeping the tone in check and the murder-mystery fairly scary. The acting is solid and though the pacing might get a little slow by the middle of its run, it pays off quite fairly at the last act.

um...wouldn't it be easier if you unplug it all instead

Terminal Choice is one movie that's aware of what it is and tries to give what the fans want: a bloody slasher film mixed with a crime-thriller style mystery. Find it and see it, you wont be disappointed.

Bodycount:
1 female continuous hemorrhaging due to drug, bled to death
1 female suffocates on a malfunctioning ventilator
1 animal seen butchered
1 male found killed (method unknown)
1 male electrocuted by defibrillator
1 male had drug injected to neck, bled to death by hemorrhaging
1 male shot to death with handgun
total:7

When Heather was asked to help her grandmother turn her missing grandfather's funeral home into a bed-and-breakfast style motel one Summer, she never expected to know about her grandpa's questionable reputation as "Chalmers The Embalmer", a crazy old coot and an adulterous lover. And as much as she doesn't want to believe any of this, those angry voices coming from the cellar and the fact that many of their guests and/or by-passers started disappearing tells her otherwise. Could Chalmers the Embalmer finally living up to his nickname and killing off people? Or is there something else sinister afoot?

Not much I can for this little number apart that it is cheesier than a fondue-drenched cheese sandwich and too slow for its own good, all the while sporting a workable mystery; unlike many slashers being released in its era, Funeral Home attempts to mix a good whodunit with the hammy delight of odd characters, somewhat a strange combination that didn't work out too well for me. While the likes of a bumbling law enforcers, a retarded gardener, religiously-unhinged parental figures, and the obviously virginal good girl next door did gave the film's story-driven mystery enough red herrings to distract us with, they came too distracting for me to the point that I hardly cared for who is killing these people. Add the fact that we spend a good portion of the first hour looking into these character's unusual personalities with barely anything of interest happening, the slow burn direction is relatively confusing and frustrating.

Things did finally pick up at the last third when the murderer starts to snuff off anyone suspicious; unfortunately, much of my interest was gone at that point and the relatively tame murders didn't help reignite my attention. The editing to these scenes were creepy at most, putting some fairly good use of shadows and creepy noises to make the suspense work, but in the end, these scenes are no more than a lukewarm reward for our patience when the big reveal turned out to be fairly obvious, if not overly cliched.

It's sad really, but if they at least made more effort on pacing their story, or done a better job at characterization, Funeral Home would had been better. Yet I do recommend fans of atmospheric slashers would try to check this title if they can find it. I'm sure five out of ten from them would like it. Me? I prefer my moody thrillers with more intelligent themes or a brighter splash of red, thank you.

Bodycount:

1 male and 1 female pushed off a cliff in their car and drowns in a lake

Friday, July 29, 2011

Just Before Dawn (1981)
Rating:***1/2
Starring: George Kennedy, Mike Kellin and Chris Lemmon

"What what? In my butt~ I sat what what? In my butt!"

Two hunters find themselves entering the remains of an abandoned church in the woods when they are suddenly terrorized by an unseen hulk. One hunter got away, the other got something in between his legs that's long, hard...and razor sharp.

﻿﻿Cut-shift to a van full of campers on a hiking trip of fun who were warned by the local sheriff and too the surviving hunter that the woods aren't safe. As any dumb teenagers would in this kind of films, they ignored all these warning and continue to hike deeper into the mountains, which they eventually have to go on foot when the trail got too thin for their van. Camps are later set and the usual teen business begins (loud music, making out, small talk, everything else that has nothing to do with hiking);they soon ran afoul with a family of hillbillies who're less than welcoming towards city-folks and proves that point by blowing up their some of their gear with a shotgun.
﻿﻿

A sheriff who talks to plants; guess we now know
why he got cast in The Naked Gun...

Stubbornly, a radio full of buckshots wasn't enough of a message to drive this kids back home, so they still went on their trail. However, our demons (a pair of hillbilly's mongoloids) finally decided to make their move and began killing off anyone they get their sausage fingers on. As the group thins down to the last two, the battle for survival starts...

Damsel in distress? or Murder Accomplice?

Just Before Dawn is indeed an underrated gem; high hopes were set thanks to this film's unusually messed up opening kill, placing us in a mind set that we will see more blood and dismembered body parts rather than peeps talking and freaks plainly stalking, but instead we sadly had to sit through a sluggish pacing in order to build tension, even once it finally got around the climax.

Still, moving away from this flaw on momentum, the film did managed to recreate one of the best suspenseful and moody atmosphere in slasher flick history,mimicking the 70s portrayal of mountain men and demoralizing survivors after undergoing some serious threats and drastic measures to survive, often in vein of "Deliverance (1972)", or the "hicksploitation" sub-genre in general. The movie's eerie, sullen and isolated backdrop helped create some tense scenes whenever the killers around, especially at night wherein certain scenes had our leads viciously cornered like animals.

Oh dear God, it beats Hugo Stiglitz's fist-feed any day!

The killers themselves were no joke neither. They're dumb-looking, child-like and creates weird "whistle-giggle" noises, but no less fatal. Their origins weren't fully explained but the mountain family living within the woods hinted connection to them, along with the idea of incest and inbreeding in some certain scenes. Nevertheless, they're still basically random boogeymen who just happens to be roaming the woods for some people to cut up just for the heck of it, and in a contextual notion, nothing could be scarier.

It's rare to have a backwoods slashers had been done right, and this film may or may not be an example of one. It's overlooked for many reasons, some sharing mine while others differ, but I can assure you that it's a great film for avid slasher fans to see, even if it they have to wait an hour or so before the action starts.

It's Deliverance all over again...

Bodycount:
1 male had his groin impaled with saw-toothed machete
1 male pushed off a cliff and drowns in river
1 male pinned and impaled on the ground with machete
1 female killed offscreen
1 male repeatedly shot on the back with shotgun
1 male choked on a fist
total: 6

An elderly matron, Mrs. Pringle and her retarded son, Rodney, scalps young coeds who drops by in their wig store for their hair. When her friends begins to thin out, Kathy a concerned student, starts snooping around after her friend Dawn disappears, much to the patience of her boyfriend, and traces it to the The Pringle's wig store, discovering what lies behind it.

Mmm...yummy...the chicken that is.

And that's pretty much the whole story. Yeah, all play and no work makes The Gruesome Twosome a weak and bizzare proto-slasher to begin with. I know this is made from the decades where in drive-in films, splatter matter, but even TWO THOUSAND MANIACS! had some bits of core in its gore. This film lacks focus, that's the problem, I know I have a high tolerance for cheese and bizarre plots, but this film had a lot of scenes that doesn't really had anything to do with the plot, like some dude and his girl in a date with the gorging down potato chips and drown himself with wine, or that demolition derby that run around for nearly 10 minutes, just to name a few.

Scalping via kitchen knife=messy

The only good thing about this film is that the splatter REALLY matters when the ball gets rolling. When Rodney kills, he does it with so much clumsiness and lumbering buffoonery that his kills are messy, even for our standards today! (not to mention Rodney's little quarrel with his last victim. Let's just say he had to keep an eye on her...)

Fans of drive-in splatter will definitely love this, heck, the rest of the world might as well for all I care, but it's gonna take more than three murders and a 7 minute clip of two sentient wig store mannequin heads talking to each other about the wigs being placed in their heads (and to add the weirdness of this, one of them DIES!) to keep me entertained and satisfied.

Family bonding with the (S)Pringles

If you're looking for randomness, cheesy gore and a horror flick with no depths, you've found it, everybody else, move along.

Bodycount:
1 female talking mannequin head gets a knife on the top of her head
1 female scalped with kitchen knife
1 female beheaded with electric knife
1 female gets hacked open with machete
total: 4

Thursday, July 28, 2011

It's not very often we get treated with a full slasher anthology. Most of the horror anthologies we get are a bash-pride of different sub-genres placed into one big movie (the Creepshow series, Body Bags (1993), Nightmares (1983), The Trilogy of Terror series just to name a few.) But Screamtime didn't even out the distribution of sub-genres for all three of these stories had more than a nod to the hack n' slash fims, they are Hack n' slash films.

Creepy dolls looked creepier in "That's the way to do it"

The first of the segment, "That's The Way to do it", tells us a story of a Puppeteer whose shows aren't bringing any more money. His persistence to keep his job and his puppets strikes more than a nerve to his wife and their teen son as they threatened to leave him if he kept doing the puppet shows. To add insult to injury, his son burns down his small theater no soon after humiliating him in front of his audiences. Not long after, "Punch" is out there bashing to death all those who upsets his master with his stick.

"Dreamhouse" Segment. The wet dream of home invasion enthusiasts

The second segment delivers more blood, "Dreamhouse" had two couples moving in to a new house but as soon as they're settled in, the wife began seeing a visions of brutal murders. They dismiss this at first but the visions got so real and visceral, line between fiction and reality begin to blur for her.

Cheesy gnomes and Elizabethean ghosts in "Do You Believe in Faries?"

The last entry "Do you Believe In Fairies?", is more of a mixture of slasher, fantasy and haunted house genre, as a young lad, desperate for some money to pay some heavy debt, decides to steal some antiques from his new employer's home. But unknown to him, his employers' stories of fairies guarding their homes may not be fiction after all.

All this packed in a wraparound which tells the story of a couple of thieves stealing these tapes off a local videostore (each containing the segments, with the petty thieves commenting the films at the end of each), only to be rewarded for their crimes ala "fourth wall" attack from the characters.

"That's the way to do it" is the best of the segments, with a creepy puppet flying and attacking his victims while talking and singing in a high shrill voice and a fairly sympathetic lead character whose passion for his job may or may not be getting into his head. "Dreamhouse" brought the most gore than the two combined, with a whole family murdered (including an onscreen child-knifing!) and a devilishly clever twist. While the first two are pure slasher to the core, "Do You believe in Fairies?" featured some EC comics style of terror and humor that's all cheesy yet comic-book friendly.

It's a pretty decent attempt to create a trilogy of slasher shorts but it has its off moments. Some of the stories would had benefited more as a feature but some are just weak (especially the last). There's a copious amount of cheese present in each story and I'm not to argue, but a little less of cheddar and more thrills could had done the job right. Despite the cheesiness and each segment being altogether different, they're all modest horror stories in the end that's made to entertain.

Screamtime is a good thing to rent, or own if you're a fan of cheesy anthologies. Just remember not to steal it...

bodycount:1 male beaten to death with plank1 elderly female beaten to death with plank1 male had his head beaten with plank1 male crushed to death in trash compactor1 male found stabbed to death1 female stabbed to eath with knife1 boy stabbed to death with knife1 male stabbed and slashed with knife1 male strangled and slashed with knife1 male had his throat cut with razor1 male strangled to death1 male mauled to death1 male gets flying knives to the chest
1 male strangled
1 male beaten to death with a plank
total: 15

Ah yes, the torture porn genre. By the time the genre hits the public it's met with loud bashing and riots by angry mothers and churchgoers due to its depiction of over the top violence and gore. It even met some notoriety among some slasher fans for "ruining" the sub-genre, degrading it into pseudo-snuff films with prolonged deaths and gross-out factors. Because of that, many fans separates such titles as a "different horror sub- genre". I'm gonna call Crap-o-la on that.

Yeah ...yeah ...yeah...T&A, we get it...

In the past five or so years, Torture Porn had influenced many slasher titles to go beyond the tame, and though I'm not going to agree that the idea is good, these new wave slashers need some love and acceptance. So, I welcome Hostel into my humble slasher review site as a hybrid of both genres.

Here, we get a trio of college students who're looking for some T&A across Europe, after a little brush with the locals late at night, got what they wanted as a Russian man informs them of one such place. They soon traveled to an undocumented near Bratislava, where it is said to have many girls who are looking for sweet American asses. Of course, they did got what they were looking for, but what they weren't expecting to be targeted by an underground organization where they "murder-for-profit" anyone they could get their hands on.

Then they begin to thin down into just one, the survivor must kill his way out, no matter what...

I've seen a lot of debates from fans whether they should consider titles such as SAW or Hostel as slasher films or not. For me, just because a slasher film went off the pattern of stalking dumb teenagers in an isolated cabin with power tools one by one, it doesn't make them any less than one. But yet again, Hostel had too much going on to make it a standard slasher; the lack of chase makes it hard to point out as one, as well as the bigger emphasis on the "Final Boy's" escape.

Mutilations gone heavy in this Eli Roth directed feature, as the first kill starts out pretty tame (an off-screen beheading) before going to an all-out splat attack on the audience with an assortments of murders such as castration, electrocution, disembowelment, you name it. No one had seen it coming and it's enough to keep fans happy.

Of course, this movie is made for pure gorehounds; critics would never understand it, nor would even accept what it had done to the genre, but I see it more as a revival of Herschell Gordon Lewis's splatter films that started in the 60s with more visceral details than before, as well as paying a few nods to past slasher films (like that obvious tribute to Leatherface's little "accident" in the first TCM.and the usual teens in peril of masked psycho/es plot line). With that being said, some of the notoriety of this film didn't came from the gore alone, but also the interpretation of a European country as a war plagued, crime high and whore infested land, where their only way to defile themselves from these problems is to abduct a couple of people and sell them to willing buyers for them to murder.

As sickening as it is, the empty feeling it has once the gore's removed is inevitable. Luckily, I'm a gorehound of some level and I'm just in it for the gore alone. I would like to see that film as a "kill-count" film, where you just sit back and enjoy the carnage without thinking too much. If I wanted more story coming from this film, I would see its sequel instead (which is a lot better! Surprisingly), but as for this, I think Mr. Roth had no idea what he had started...

bodycount:

1 male head seen

1 female tortured, later seen mutilated

1 male, heels cut, neck slashed offscreen with scalpel

1 male seen with his neck being mutilated

1 male seen being killed with a powerdrill

1 male seen being castrated

1 male seen being bludgeoned with board.

1 male accidentally sawed off his own leg with a chainsaw, gunshot to the head

1 male shot

1 male hammered on the head

1 male shot

2 females and 1 male repeatedly ran over with car

2 males gets their heads bashed in with rocks (by children!)

1 female suicide: throws herself into an incoming train

1 male neck slashed with scalpel

total: 18

(note: in some version of the film the final kill didn't happen. Paxton, after escaping and was about to board a train he spots the Dutch Business man with his daughter. He follows them to the bathroom; After the Business man did his...business, he went out and finds his daughter missing. He began calling out for her, panicking, as it reveals that Paxton had his little girl as they drive away. The Business man continues to call for her as the film ends. On a personal note, I really prefer this ending.)

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Adjie is a man in loved with Dara's cooking and Dara hersel. This is no surprise as Dara is pretty for a woman of her age and successful enough to own a stable restaurant, so when she invited Adjie to her house, the man never had a hint of doubt...

Until he wakes up chained to the wall of a room filled with dismembered human, suspiciously piled up like beef.

In a twist, Dara turns out to be a savage slasher collecting men for their meat, serving them as ingredients for her restaurant's exquisite delicacies.So now, poor Adjie is next in line and just as Dara's about to slash him with her chaisnaw, someone comes knocking on her door...

WHAT DID I TELL YA?! BIRD'S PACKING HEAT!

Fast paced yet well developed, Dara is a dark comedy of minimal length that's good enough to satisfy our slasher cravings with Texas Chainsaw Massacre inspire mayhem, a few nod to the first Hostel movie and perhaps the next big female psycho to she grab our attention.

The story is a devilish gender-reversal that packs enough blood and guts, as well as a few chuckles when our villainess' plans didn't go quite as she planned, and being a movie that only runs for 22 minutes, I am actually quite impressed by the well-paced direction and savagery, despite its rather predictable story.

The film would later receive a longer, gorier and more mystified feature made by the same people who created this short at 2009 title Macabre which I can assure you is good enough to be in someone's to-see list. Until then, this little devil, along with other short horror films from Indonesia, got compiled and packaged into one DVD titled "Takut-faces of Fear". I've yet to see the rest of the compilation, but I can assure you, Dara delivers.

We owe a lot to this film. If it wasn't for Norman Bate's id, we wouldn't have the human monsters grabbing knives and starting chainsaws today. That simple act of murder started millions of titles to do the same. So now, I bring you the masterpiece of all masterpieces: Psycho.

In Phoenix, Arizona, lovers Marion Crane and Sam Loomis want to get married but Sam's heavy debt kept them from doing so. When Marion came back to her work, she's trusted with $40,000 in cash by her employer which is to be deposited, only for her to steal moments later and drove off to her boyfriend's home in California.

Her suspicious behavior caught the attention of one cop along the way, so she trade cars on a local dealership, stapling their suspicious further with her anxious state as she does. That night, a storm caught up to her and she is forced to pull over to a motel, one that is alone in the hills and standing next to a house, belonging to one Norman Bates.

Bates warms up to her as she is friendly to him, and invites her for dinner where a heated discussion concerning a conversation she overheard between Bate's mother and him sparked something that upsets the man. Feeling guilty over this and the money she stole, Marion contemplates her actions and decided to return the cash the next day.

As Marion figures her next step, she decided to cool off with a shower. Behind the curtain, while she washes, someone silently walks in, clenching a knife, and stabs Marion to death. Not too long after the brutal murder, Norman sees the body and desperately dispose it, along with her belongings, in a nearby swamp, knowing his mother was responsible for it.

In California, Sam is contacted by Lisa Crane, Marion's sister, who's worried that Marion hadn't been showing up for work or answering her calls. With them soon was Milton Arbogast, an investigator who's been hired by Marion's employer to recover the missing $40,000. He traces Marion to Bate's Motel and questions him about her, which he lied (unconvincingly) that she had left for weeks. Arbogasts learns about Mrs. Bates and asks Norman if he can talk to her, but Bates tells him that she's ill and prefers to be alone.

After phoning Lisa of the findings, he later went into Bate's house hoping to question his mother, but he got attacked and murdered instead by a faceless killer.

Lisa and Sam finds out from the local sheriff, after informing him of Arbogast's sudden disappearance, that Mrs. Bates died ten years prior in a murder-suicide along with her lover. Finding no concern from the local police, Sam and Lisa headed to Bates' Motel, posing as a married couple and investigates on their own on what had happened to Marion and Arbogast. As Sam distracts Bates, Lisa moves into Bate's house and looks for any clues. She, however, found no ill mother to question; Bates realizes that Lisa's been missing for a while, knocks Sam unconscious and ran straight to his house, forcing Lisa to hide in the cellar. There, she found the preserved corpse of Bate's mother and Bates, now in his "mother" persona, about to attack her. Fortunately, Sam regains consciousness and grapples Norman down long enough to get him arrested.

A psychiatist informs Lisa, Sam, and the sheriff, upon Bate's arrest that his normal persona is now gone and his "mother" persona had taken over completely. He began telling them of Bate's pathology, as an abused boy by his mother, who lives with her as if they're the only ones in the world until that day ten years ago had fractured his mind. He murdered his mother and his lover over jealousy and kept her body, in denial that she is dead. He began talking to her, and, in a split persona, answers to a series of conversations. When Marion came, Norman was aroused, Mother was threatened to what this would do to them and kills her out of jealousy. Norman was unaware of all of his and, after them finding out the real Mrs. Bates, the mother side had now complete control over him.

The film ends with Norman -sorry, "Norma"- reassuring "herself" that they cannot convict her forever, seeing that she had done no crime and it was all "Norman's" doing, smiling at us as she claims she wouldn't hurt anyone, not even a fly...

A Drama, a Thriller, a Horror Mystery, Psycho had the makings of becoming the first staple slasher film, further exploiting many others to do the same approach in terms of horror and thriller movies. The film would even be one of the many titles to inspire Italian directors in the 60s/70s to create murder mysteries themselves in the form of "Giallo" films. From Giallo then came our beloved slasher flicks, the grand-grandchildren of a 50 year old film.

Psycho's legacy would later be followed with three sequels (one being part-prequel), further exploring Bate's exploits of his mental condition, but none of them came close to this film's cerebral nature, cleverly directed cinematography and hidden symbolism and hints.

Of course, the world is a dark place in Hitchcock's mind, and his take on the murder-mystery is indeed an unbeatable classic. Every horror fan, even film buffs alike, should at least see this magnificent piece of film. Feel the dread as it is that time and see the genius the is Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO.

Following his escape from his captivity inside a mental ward, Dr. Alan Feinstone took on a new life as Dr. Cain in Paradise, Missouri. After murdering a local dentist (over a rushy-made tooth cap), he easily got his profession back, and tries his best to be normal and get his love life back on track with a neighbor he fallen for.

But with his muted wife, surviving her husband's attempt to murder her, wanted him tracked down and hires an investigator to find out where he had escaped to, and some people recognizing him from his previous murdering spree, perhaps being normal is a job worth dropping over a good old' fashion murder spree.

To be honest, it's just as good as the original, but now that we're aware what kind of horrible things our "hero" is capable of doing, there's very little surprise left for us. What we got treated with, instead, is another narrative involving our titular killer dentist trying to fit in a new town while attempting to repress his murderous nature. The way I see it, the plot's more mellow than the hate-filled first; there's a few dark humor inserted here and there, decent kills, some brutal dental torture, not to mention the tragic love angle reminiscent from films like Psycho 3 or Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence, making The Dentist 2 an unnecessary yet watchable movie.

Ow...ow...ow....ow

So it lacks any surprises, and, rather, it stays on its course. It's not a bad film to follow a great first, but it has "franchise" written all over it, especially its weird ending, that left with a cliffhanger and wondering what would happen next.

So, if you're an avid fan of the first, there's a chance you might hate it, but other than that its a good film to spend a night with. Just don't watch it before your dental appointment tomorrow morning...

bodycount:
1 female missing (presumably killed)
1 male falls down the stairs and broke his neck
1 male anesthetic injected to his ear
1 male hammered to death
1 female dental tortured, later found dead with her lips cut off
1 female bludgeoned with wooden board on the head
total: 6

I'm not lying, I find those needles to be quite stingy but ticklish, and those drills soothing in my mouth. By the time it's over, I feel like a million bucks better with those pearly whites clean or my caps filled.

"I'm here to make you feel better..."

Of course, there were those times when I've felt the uncertainty of leaving my whole mouth open for a man to operate on. What if he's not qualified to do this, nor does he really care for his profession? Or worse, what if he's insane beneath that smile?

Dr. Alan Feinstone is a rich and successful dentist living in Beverly Hills. He has a beautiful wife, a wonderful mansion, a penchant for opera music, and a perfectionist.

Maybe too much of a perfectionist; he expects it from everybody including his wife, his staffs and even his patients. His search for perfection is putting a dent to his sanity as well as his job, but things begins to go out of hand once he found out his wife was cheating on him with a pool boy.

After a day of pressure, horrific visions, and threats, he snaps. He begins to coldly calculate on "fixing" every problem he can find with his life (starting with his wife), and finish it off with anything he can find, whether it's a kitchen knife, a gun, or even a set of dentist drills...

For some people, this is considered a "turn-on"

Brian Yuzna (Producer and director of cult classics such as "Castle Freak (1995)" and the Reanimator series) taps within a childhood fear and mixed it with a surprisingly good story, about a medical man's descent into madness and a narrative of the day it went all to hell. What was supposed to be a simple, "Time-bomb" horror flick, The Dentist brought forth some great tension and shocks in favor of cheese and dumbfounded plot. It slowly builds up to our expectations of a spree killing and when it happens, it didn't gave up on the gory goodness.

We get to see it all through Feinstone's perspective, which makes The Dentist more of a special take on the slasher genre, with our killer is our main subject rather than the victims. The fact that there's barely any background on how or why Feinstone became this unhinged made the character more unnerving and intense. Corbin Bernsen making a fine performance as our deadly dentist, showing a rather calm, calculated and hygenic killer that murders with style and procession, making his character likable and somewhat unique.

oh shit...there goes every dental check-ups I'll be needing...

The only drawbacks this film suffers from were some dragging scenes and a few failed black humor. Pace is even, but there just some part that I felt a little unnecessary. Thankfully, the flow of the story managed to cover it up and linked it nicely to the murder spree later on.

It's has cult standards written all over it, and its popularity within the fans of grue earned it a sequel received with mixed feelings. Nevertheless, while I consider this a tamer effort by the man who brought gallons and gallons of fake blood in all of those Reanimator movies, The Dentist is a good rental for those who loves a little body horror with their slasher films.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

It probably looked good on paper; a slasher film about a time void and a group of teenagers getting themselves stuck in said time void, where a string of murders took place. It's an original idea, nobody had done it before, so what went wrong?

Everything.

A group of teenagers ventures into the wrong road one night and ends up getting attacked with mud pies; later in the morning, they found themselves in Camp Hiawatha, where every counselor and campers act and dresses as if they're in the 80s. (short shorts never looked so disturbing in daylight...) Before you could say "Jason" (actually, they kept mentioning his name every time something creepy happens that it's annoying... really annoying....), a gloved killer starts killing off the campers and counselors with some rather uninspired and repetitive kills.

"WE LOVE SHORT SHORTS! I LOVE SHORT SHORTS!"

As night draws near to their deaths, they find themselves asleep and waking up in Camp Hiawatha again, everyone that was killed alive and well, and reliving the same day. Yeah, it's Groundhog Day (1993) meets Friday the 13th (part 2,3,4,5,6,7,8...every one of them!). Now that they're aware of what's happening, they decided to help the counselors survive that night in order to free them from repeating the same night over and over again. But is that all there is? Who was the actual killer? Or Killers?

Camp Slaughter (or Camp Daze ) had a lot to offer but with it's lack of money to budget such a big idea, it hinders from being an effective horror flick. The kills were recycled and, I can't believe I'm saying this, too much as we got a lot of unnecessary sub-plots and scenes that's just placed there to heighten up the kill count, such as a "double flashback" that took place in the end and a "nightmare massacre" where one pissed off play director kills an entire cast after they couldn't do their roles right.

The script is weak ("Jason"... felt like he was mentioned more than ten times...by the same actress...all in separate scenes...) and the acting is off at times, but at least it did managed to waver us from figuring out the killers too soon. Still not sure what to feel about the homoerotic scenarios that makes me wonder if the guys who wrote this script were gay.

If done right, the film would had been a cult classic as horror's first time travel-slasher film, predating Timecrimes (2007) and even Triangle (2009). But it flopped right by the time we get to meet the casts, hear the low quality audio, cringe at the bad acing and groan at the really unoriginal deaths mashed together for a film that's executed with a quality that's bad even for a B-Movie!

Not sure about you guys but this film is garbage. At least the producer's Frat House Massacre was an improvement...

bodycount:

1 male strangled with noose

1 female killed

1 male strangled

1 female had an arrow shot to her neck

1 male had his head crushed against a tree with a belt

1 male had his neck slit with knife (dream)

1 male stabbed to death (dream)

1 male and 1 female skewered together with spear

1 male hanged and had his gut hacked open with axe

1 male had his neck slashed with machete

2 males skewered together with spear

1 female pitchforked on the back

1 male same pitchfork from above stabbed to his chest (so...they're skewered again...)

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About Me

I'm a Filipino Nerd with a penchant for all things weird, messy and overly theatrical. Loves to draw, write, and read at a highschool level.
Has a thing for slashers, monsters, comic books, Doctor Who and collecting knick-knacks such as a certain line of toys based on a 2010 reboot of an 80s cartoon about talking, rainbow colored ponies.